30 years ago, Prince's 'Purple Rain' saturated pop culture

The classic soundtrack for his film Purple Rain, released in June of that year, hit No. 1 on Aug. 4 — 30 years ago today — and stayed there until January 1985. That album produced four of His Royal Badness’ biggest hits — Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, I Would Die 4 U and, of course, Purple Rain.

“(The movie) Purple Rain is basically a long-form music video, a bunch of performances strung together by a romance on the side. Prince became a megastar. It was a hit movie, a hit album and had a zillion hit singles. It was like killing 17 birds with one stone.” — Keith Caulfield, Billboard

It was a pretty spectacular welcome to the mainstream for a guy who was previously best known for performing in skimpy underwear: